Modelling the structure and evolution of industrial districts

Abstract

“Should an entomologist observing a moving line of ants try to understand what their leader sees in a certain new obstacle in its path and how it describes that obstacle in ‘antish’ (sic) to those following behind? Should the entomologist do no more than study the behaviour of the ants on the basis of an ‘objective’ description of their movements, of the terrain, of the obstacles in their path, etc, as they appear to human eyes? “

“Regional or’ spatial’ economics can be summed up in the question: “What is where and why -and so what?” (…)? “ Where refers to location in relation to other economic activity; it involves questions of proximity, concentration, dispersion, and similarity or disparity of spatial patterns (…). Until fairly recently, traditional economists ignored the where question altogether, finding plenty of problems to occupy them without giving any spatial dimensions to their analysis. Traditional geographers, though directly concerned with what is where, lacked any real technique of explanation in terms of human behaviour and institutions to supply the why and resorted to mere description and mapping”. Hoover (1971), An Introduction to Regional Economics, A. Knopf, New York.